1965 film that cashed in on the craze of Dalekmania by adapting the
Doctor Who serial "
The Daleks" into a cinema spectacle. It featured the Daleks (IN COLOUR!) battling against
Peter Cushing as Dr. Who.
It was followed a year later by
Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 AD, which did nowhere near as well.
Tropes used in this film:
- Aliens Speaking English: The Daleks and the Thals, who both speak and read perfect English. There's no mention of an equivalent for the TV show's translation circuit, and it is unexplained how either race is able to communicate with Dr. Who and his companions.
- Alternate Continuity: Let us count the ways!
- The character of the Time Lord note (The series didn't name the Doctor's race until 1969 and his home planet until the early 1970s, but it had long been established that he wasn't from Earth.) known as The Doctor has become a human scientist called Dr. Who.
- Susan and Barbara are both his granddaughters (with the surname Who, to boot).
- Ian is Barbara's boyfriend, neither of them is a teacher, and both are teenagers.
- Susan is a little girl of about eleven.
- Dr. Who's ship is known as Tardis (note the lack of the definite article).
- Tardis is still a police box that's Bigger on the Inside (somehow), but its interior consists of only one room built very haphazardly. There's no hexagonal console, time rotor, or roundels — just a great many random buttons, wires, and switches...and a single lever is all that controls the space/time travel mechanism. Also, no vworp noise.
- Canon Immigrant / Development Gag: The Daleks were supposed to have flamethrowers, which were scrapped for the infamous fog cannons. However, flamethrowers were included with the Daleks in regular canon, in "The Daleks' Master Plan".
- Compressed Adaptation: From seven 25-minute episodes (175 minutes total) to one 79-minute film.
- Little Miss Badass: The movie's eleven-year-old Susan is considerably bolder than the TV show's fifteen-year-old Susan, who only returned to the TARDIS from the city after much prodding.
- Sequel Hook: At the end, our heroes try to get back to London, but end up in the middle of an ancient Roman battle.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Antodus.
- Zeerust: The Daleks' colourful fortress, big time. The Dalek control room even has lava lamps, which probably still seemed incredibly futuristic in 1965.
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